


If We Walk Down This Road (We'll Be Lovers for Sure)

by artificialashley



Series: GMN Universe [3]
Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: F/F, You get the memo, enemies to lovers (kinda), scarlet is her rich boss' daughter, sixth form AU, tw references to racism and racial stereotypes, yvie is a cynical teenager who hates everyone and everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26859241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artificialashley/pseuds/artificialashley
Summary: It’s the final year of sixth form and stress levels are high for Yvie as she balances school work, Uni applications and her “part-time” job in a kids activity centre. However, things only get worse when her boss decides to hire his privately educated, definition of privilege daughter, Scarlet, as their marketing assistant and she rubs Yvie up the completely wrong way. Until, of course, she doesn’t.
Relationships: Scarlet Envy/Yvie Oddly
Series: GMN Universe [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1771708
Kudos: 16





	If We Walk Down This Road (We'll Be Lovers for Sure)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ortega](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ortega/gifts).



> Although this is part of the series it still makes sense as a standalone.  
> Hope you enjoy! Please let me know what you think xoxo

Yvie loved her life. She wouldn’t have changed a piece of it for the world. Only, every now and then, she longed to be someone else.

This feeling usually arrived when making her way through the industrial estate, hearing the loud Kidz Bop music they were forced to play at her work ring in her ears before the building was even in sight. In fact, that feeling arrived every single time she walked towards her work, it was just something she had become accustomed to. It wasn’t the worst job in the world, she got to hang out with Jaida, Heidi and Priyanka on the weekends and the pay wasn’t awful. She just sometimes wished that after a long, frustrating day of writing essays she could stay on the bus until she arrived home, take a nice shower and do her homework with the telly on instead of hopping off after just six stops to put on a fake smile for a few hours and pray that no one was sick in the soft play area.

And on what seemed like the dullest Friday since she had started her job there, God (who she didn’t really believe in but had no one else to make the prayer to) decided that it most certainly wasn’t her night because a grand total of three kids were sick in the soft play instead of just the usual one. 

So worth the twenty pounds she’d end off earning. So, so worth it.

Ready to throw her gloves in the bin, wash her hands at least four times and spend the rest of the night lurking at the back of the cafe until it was time to close, Yvie was stopped in her tracks when she returned back to her spot. Her spot that was currently occupied by a thin, unfamiliar red-head.

Pale legs poking out of a plaid skirt that reeked of prefects and lacrosse games, she stood out like a sore thumb against the bright yellow hoodies that made up their uniform (Yvie’s slightly stained with bleach and too short for her gangly arms). Yvie watched in silence for a second as the girl burrowed through the fridge, hearing a big, dramatic sigh of relief escape her red lips as she laid eyes on a Coke Zero.

“Can I help you?” Yvie asked.

Only it wasn’t really a question, Yvie using her level ten voice that was usually only saved for people who tried to push in the queue for the toilet on nights out or for idiots who answered easy questions wrong on  _ Pointless  _ when she watched it at Nina’s house. Annoying customers were normally only confronted with a mid-range level of anger on Yvie’s behalf, passive-aggressive rather than completely pissed off. As much as forever feeling the need to call out people in the wrong irked her, Yvie knew that she shouldn’t do that at work, leaving it for at home where the threat of being fired didn’t loom over her shoulder like the grim reaper’s scythe.

Something about this girl just threw that out into the window and sent it flying down the motorway at rapid speed, Yvie’s patience nowhere to be seen.

“Sorry.” The girl giggled. Actually giggled. “Took me forever to find the sugar free!”

“Normally you’d wait to be served it.” Yvie shot imaginary laser beams with her eyes. “At the  _ other side  _ of the counter.”

Yvie watched the girl pause, a coy grin on her face as her eyes danced between Yvie’s face and her own reflection in the clean glass.

“It’s a shame there was no one there to serve me!” She unscrewed the lid from the bottle, taking a swig and  _ aaahing  _ in delight as though it were the nectars of Greek gods.

Her voice was posh. 

Not tea and crumpets, let's-go-shoot-some-clay-pigeons posh but still posh nonetheless. She pronounced the Ts in her words in a way that neither Yvie nor any of her friends did and Yvie knew that if she wasn’t so furious she would have found it sexy.

She was always a sucker for a posh voice.

“Well, if you’d have waited two minutes then I would have been here,” Yvie replied, letting her nails squish into the palms of her own hands - a self-control mechanism that didn’t tend to work when your nails were bitten down to stumps like Yvie’s currently were (something she liked to attribute to the stress of her A-Levels despite it being a habit she’d formed as a kid). 

It was safe to say she didn’t feel relieved.

Especially when the familiar lull of the owner's voice boomed behind her. How perfectly convenient.

“Yvie!”

Normally Yvie would be relieved to realise he’d actually gotten her name right but her mind was full of other thoughts - supermodel shaped thoughts with blue eyes that were probably going to get her murdered.

At least she’d taken the rubber gloves off before she met her untimely end, she thought to herself, pulling the biggest ‘I’m sorry, I should be more attentive’ smile she could muster as she turned to face her boss.

“I see you’ve met my daughter!” He motioned to the girl.

His daughter, of course.

“Yes,” Yvie stammered, her cheeks red at the mistake she’d made.

The girl, her  _ boss’ daughter _ , instead seemed nothing but amused.

“Scarlet’s here to help with our marketing; gotta make sure that personal statement is in tip-top shape ready for applications!”

Yvie felt his words crawl under her skin, the itch of casual nepotism. Casual nepotism that would probably land people like Yvie without a Uni offer. She never liked to think of herself as bitter when these situations arose, but this time she couldn't deny that she was at least a little tart. After all, Yvie was pretty adamant that any Russell Group would favour the privately educated white girl who had marketing experience with a local business over the one who cleaned the toddler’s sick from the ball pit.

It really was as simple as that.

Yvie didn’t know if Scarlet failed to sense her discomfort or simply ignored it anyway as she moved over and held out her hand.

Yvie couldn’t remember the last time she had actually shaken someone’s hand but obliged nonetheless. Scarlet’s eyes narrowed slightly when Yvie met them, her face concentrated like she was about to be quizzed on Yvie’s appearance. Realising she hadn’t blinked since their hands met, Yvie pulled away quickly, the brightness of the centre snapping back into focus around her.

“I guess I’ll be seeing you around, then.” Scarlet took an extra big swig of the bottle before tossing it in the bin and leaving the cafe with her Dad.

And she wasn’t wrong. Indeed, Yvie found herself “seeing Scarlet around” on every single shift she was on the rota for. For an entire three weeks. Without fail. 

She was starting to think the phrase, ‘bane of my life’ was an understatement for how she felt about the girl.

It’d started small, Yvie finding herself rolling her eyes whenever Scarlet came into the cafe for a drink. But soon Yvie started to believe that Scarlet didn’t just live in a different part of town but in a whole other fantasy that the rest of the staff were foreign to, parading past the trampolines once every hour as if the carpet were the runway at Paris Fashion Week. 

“Do you think someone needs to tell her she’s not actually a real princess?” Yvie spoke into the walkie talkie, exchanging glances between Scarlet and her friend.

“Leave her be! She’s just playing with the kids, you witch,” Jaida responded from the opposite end of the park. “Stop being so cynical.”

Yvie was grateful for her work friends. Although she loved Nina and Brooke with every piece of her often cold, dead heart, it was nice to have found girls more like her at work. Girls who understood how it felt when her school told her she wasn’t allowed any “extreme” hairstyles and she had to take out her braids. Girls who also got told they were too confident, sometimes arrogant when all they were doing was being proud of themselves. Girls a little bit older and wiser (not that she’d ever admitted that she found them wise) who helped her love her skin just that little bit more than she already did.

“Yeah but she’s probably getting paid double what we are to swan about like that!”

Yvie raised her hands in the air to Jaida but didn’t get a chance to hear her response, turning the volume down to zero when she saw Scarlet making her way towards her.

“Hey, doll.” Scarlet plonked a notebook down on the counter in front of Yvie, a big grin of optimism filling the lower half of her face.

Her hair was down that day, soft ginger curls falling in front of her chest. Yvie had a sudden urge to push a strand back and tuck it behind her ear. 

Why did the most annoying girl on the planet have such flawless bone structure? It simply wasn’t fair.

“Hello,” Yvie responded rather formally, reaching to grab Scarlet’s usual order. The faster she did so, the faster she walked away - so Yvie may or may not have been keeping a couple of Coke Zeros in the special fridge under the counter that was saved only for open milk bottles, just so she could serve Scarlet with the utmost efficiency. 

A part of her just wished she would serve herself again.

“Oh no.” She shook her head, reaching out to touch Yvie’s arm and stop her. Yvie could hardly feel her hand through the thick hoodie, yet her heart still decided it wanted to start sprinting in the middle of the leisurely stroll it was taking before Scarlet had come over. Maybe she had to add the human anatomy to the list of things she’d decided she hated that week, right underneath her new English teacher and egg mayonnaise sandwiches. Her stupid, fat heart.

“I’m here for your interview!”

“Interview?” Yvie raised a brow and chuckled to herself. She wondered if Scarlet had ever actually had to be interviewed for anything in her life nevermind conduct one.

“For Instagram! I’m posting little profiles of all the staff, a little get to know me! It’ll help the youngsters really see what a family we are here!” 

Yet another thing Yvie hated was how Scarlet always managed to talk like an edgy teenager and a middle-aged woman at the same time, figuring that was the first and last time she’d hear an eighteen-year-old refer to kids as “youngsters”. Or at least she said she hated it in one of the many Scarlet-included rants she’d had to Heidi the weekend before; she may have actually loved it. The two feelings were often blurred in Yvie’s brain, hard to tell one from the other in her web of brutal honesty and blunt opinions. She was ninety-nine per cent sure she hated it.

“I’ll get someone to cover your station and we can go natter in the staff room.” Scarlet took her lack of words as acceptance and turned on the spot.

Maybe Yvie was only eighty per cent sure.

Yvie had never seen Scarlet in the staff room before, watching most days as the girl took her snacks outside where she ate alone in her car. So it was strange to be cramped on the small sofa with her, both of them staring at the mirror in front rather than at each other. The smell of a ready-made curry that had been left in the microwave for too long that day was lingering warm in the air. Yvie took a deep breath and held it, scared that if she released it her body would touch Scarlet’s just that inch too much and then the entire world around them would explode around them, kind of like the curry.

“So, what’s your favourite snack from the cafe?” Scarlet held a fountain pen in her hand, ready to write. Yvie didn’t need to look at the notepad to know her handwriting was beautiful, a piece of art next to her own illegible scrawls.

“I don’t buy food here,” Yvie responded nonchalantly.

Scarlet popped the end of the pen in her mouth for a moment then let it rest back at the paper.

“You’ve never eaten anything here?” Scarlet questioned, clearly dissatisfied with Yvie’s answer.

“Nope. It’s far too expensive. I just buy my lunch at the off-license before I get the bus.”

“You know what I want you to say!” Scarlet whined. Yvie thought she would do great as a soap actress if the whole marketing thing never worked out for her. She had that dramatic flare mastered down to a tee. And the charming voice to match.

“I’m being honest.” Yvie half-chuckled. “I’m not a liar.”

“Well, I’m just gonna write cheesy nachos then!” Scarlet was trying her hardest to act serious but Yvie just about caught the quiver of her lip. 

She wondered if Scarlet somehow knew about her love for cheesy nachos or if it was simply a wild coincidence, either way, she carried on to battle through the questions with Scarlet, praying that there weren't many to go.

“Which party room is your favourite?” Scarlet still hadn’t lost her enthusiasm, despite having to write down three sarcastic answers as if they were genuine and completely make up new answers for another two so far.

“The volcano room. Normally older kids hire that out and they don’t make as much of a mess as the toddlers in the mermaid or the pirate one.”

Scarlet didn’t even bother to respond to that one, simply shaking her head at Yvie’s response.

“If you don’t like my honesty…” Yvie started, desperate to get back to the comfort of the park where she could swap spots with Jaida for an hour and bask in the comfort of the ball pit.

“I actually find it quite refreshing.” Scarlet gave an all-knowing smile.

Sometimes Yvie got scared that the girl was part-wizard and could see inside of her soul. After all, she knew which school Scarlet attended and she wouldn’t be shocked one bit if it was revealed to be some modern-day incarnation of Hogwarts (then again Yvie did kind of think that about any school with a tuition fee or Latin slogan, so she didn’t know how strongly her argument would stand).

“That’s weird,” she blurted back, unable to think of something quick and witty to say. Where was Brooke with her encyclopedia of shady comebacks when she needed her? Tempted to text her some form of a rant about the interview/ambush she decided against it, knowing Brooke had planned to spend the day with her new “almost-girlfriend” that she had picked up from the literal curb earlier that month.

“You’re weird.” Scarlet stood up, giving Yvie that smile yet again. Yvie knew it so well now that she should have been able to draw it by memory only she knew it would never be captured just right. Not even with all the pencils and canvases and colours that the rainbow had to offer.

She didn’t even try to come up with a comeback to that one.

“Now for the photoshoot!” Scarlet grinned, opening the door for the pair of them.

“Photoshoot?” Yvie’s head whipped around and fired red laser-beams at the girl from her eyes. There had been absolutely no mention of a photoshoot.

“Follow me, my muse.”

***

“Are you doing homework?” Scarlet craned her neck, making out Yvie’s hunched over figure behind the big coffee machine.

“Sorry.” Yvie stood up straight and made her way to the front of the counter, her brown eyes a little droopy compared to normal. Scarlet knew Yvie always played the ‘I hate my life and don’t want to be here’ game at work regularly, but this time was different.

If she were anyone else in the world Scarlet would have pulled her into a great big cuddle. But she wasn’t. She was Yvie. And Yvie hated her.

Most of the time Scarlet didn’t mind that Yvie hated her, she found it quite amusing winding her up and seeing her face scrunch up in frustration. She knew that her confidence didn’t always rub well with people but she’d always told herself that anyone who didn’t want to live in that world with her was simply missing out. Only sometimes she wished things were a bit different at the centre.

She guessed it was one of those days.

“No need to say sorry to me, I’m not paying you!” Scarlet made her way around the back of the cafe and entered. This was something she’d withheld from doing whenever Yvie was stationed there, after their first Coke Zero incident (which she, for the record, actually found quite funny), but the urge simply pulled her and when the urge took control, Scarlet’s will power was nowhere to be seen.

“Is this History?” Scarlet held the papers close to her face. She’d never suited her glasses and had made the executive decision not to wear them around the centre. This was probably some sort of safety hazard considering the fact there were kids jumping around left, right and centre that she was supposed to be constantly observing, but she simply pretended this thought had never even crossed her little air-head brain. Scarlet knew that it never hurt to look good. After all, you never know who could be sneaking glances at you through the gaps in the slush machines.

Scarlet knew  _ exactly _ who was sneaking glances at her through the gaps in the slush machines. The constant squinting was worth it.

“I really am sorry. I’ve just been really busy and I’m trying to get all my references for Uni but-” Yvie started but stopped to serve a customer. Scarlet heard her voice waver slightly when she asked if she wanted a medium or large. It broke her heart into a thousand little pieces.

“Is it due soon?” Scarlet flicked through the questions. “I did this last term. My file is in my boot if you want me to get some notes out?”

“I don’t need your help.” Yvie took the papers from out of her hands and placed them back on the counter. 

Scarlet knew that behind her constantly on-guard exterior there was a girl who just wanted to relax for a second and have fun. She caught her sometimes. Like the time Heidi queued the entirety of the Hercules soundtrack on their iPod and Yvie complained over the walkie talkie yet Scarlet saw her dancing to the songs in the back of the cafe when she thought no one could see (she may or may not have added I Won’t Say I’m In Love to her playlist that night). Or when Jaida fell into the big airbag and shouted at everyone to look away and Yvie released one of her big hearty laughs that managed to surprise Scarlet every time she heard it. She’d always try to catch Yvie’s face when the girls played their own version of Russian roulette with the bottles of cleaning spray that they thought no one else knew about, closing their eyes and spinning the nozzles then stopping to spray - Yvie dying with laughter every time the liquid spat on her jumper.

“If you’re stressed, I can help. You’re applying to somewhere really good aren’t you?”

“You don’t know everything, Scarlet. I told you already that I don’t need your help, I don’t need your special private school notes or whatever it is you pay to get taught.”

It stung. Those weren't Scarlet’s intentions at all. But she knew how they must have come across.

“That’s okay.” She grabbed some cans of pop from the back and started to stack the fridge. “Just letting you know that the staff room is really dirty and someone needs to clean it.”

“What?” Yvie turned to face her. “Pri cleaned it yesterday.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to clean it again.” Scarlet made a point of looking at the camera in the corner that she knew her dad would glance at from his office every half an hour. “I’ll watch the cafe while you do it. And take those papers with you.”

“Do you even know how to make a coffee?” Yvie caught on, grabbing her notes and a roll of cloth for show.

“Oh my god. Yes, I go to private school but I’m not Paris Hilton! I can watch the cafe for half an hour.”

“Sorry.” Yvie smiled as she left. “And thank you. Really, thank you.”

And Scarlet felt that thank you deep in her bones, one she’d keep saved somewhere to replay on a day when she felt lonely. Only she began to think that Yvie should’ve taken the thank you back when she realised that she should have absolutely not been trusted to watch the cafe for half an hour.

Scarlet knew she wasn’t the best “employee” they had, spending most of her days taking photos, making social media posts and chatting with the little ones when they were done playing. But she didn’t know how quite bad she was until she had burned two toasties, overcharged at least five customers and accidentally poured one woman’s change into her cup of tea instead of her hand. 

Maybe she should stick to Instagram.

She tried her hardest to help, cleaning the toastie machine as best as she could before Yvie returned but she knew that she had messed things up, creating more jobs on top of the ones Yvie already had to do when closing the cafe.

“Are you nearly done?” Scarlet heard her Dad ask Yvie later on as he prepared to lock up for the night.

“Sorry, I’m just trying to cash up the till. There are a few discrepancies I need to try and fix.” Yvie didn’t even look up from the tablet, punching numbers into the digital counter with frustration.

“I’ve got my car.” Scarlet blurted before she knew what she was saying. “I’ll help Yvie and lock up here when she’s done. Get yourself away, Dad.”

Scarlet looked at her phone, full of notifications from the girls' chat: Naomi telling everyone what booze she was going to bring, Plastique asking what they were all wearing, Pearl waking up from the longest of naps to tell everyone she’d be an hour late. She didn’t read them all properly, sending a quick message before popping her phone back in her pocket:

_ ‘I’ll be late tonight. Don’t wait on me xx’ _

It was the least she could have done.

They were silent for a while, the two of them all alone in the big airy building, the main lights switched off with only the small ones at the top of the cafe kiosk to help them see.

Scarlet did her best to help, double-checking Yvie had counted the piles of coins properly whilst she fiddled around the tablet. She figured that maybe silence was better for them, she couldn’t annoy Yvie with her dramatic exclamations and Yvie wouldn’t bombard her with unsought “honest opinions”.

Until that silence was broken with a bang, echoing through the darkness and causing Scarlet’s entire body to leap out of her skin. 

Yvie didn’t even quiver. 

“What the fuck was that?” She asked Scarlet, her thick eyebrows raised as she peered towards the soft play.

“That doesn’t normally happen?” Images of axe-wielding lunatics stowed away inside the slides flashed through Scarlet’s mind.

“Funnily enough, it doesn’t,” Yvie responded, still as sarcastic as ever in times of panic. “Put your phone light on.”

Scarlet didn’t really want to go and inspect the noise but she also didn’t want to wait in the cafe alone. She knew she was the perfect damsel in distress, axe murders would love her! Trying her best not to be a baby, she followed by Yvie’s side with her phone light guiding their path.

“What if there’s a bomb?” Scarlet placed a hand on her chest and felt Yvie stop next to her. “One of those ones with a remote control that detonates it!”

“You think someone planted a bomb in our play area? And waited to detonate it when no one was around other than me and you?” Scarlet knew Yvie was rolling her eyes as she spoke despite not being able to see her. “I honestly don’t understand how your brain works sometimes.”

“You love me really,” Scarlet responded without thought as they turned another corner. It was an automatic response she often used to her friends when they made fun of her, it felt weird saying it to Yvie. With anyone else, she would have brushed it off, but with Yvie it was different.

And then Yvie gasped.

Before Scarlet knew it her hand was in the other girl’s. It was automatic. She got a shock and Yvie was there. A patch of her hand turned cool where Yvie’s ring pressed against it.

“What was it?” She asked a second later, her brain too caught up with why her hand was gripping tightly onto Yvie’s hand and why Yvie hadn’t pushed her off to actually know what Yvie had reacted to.

“Nothing.” The hearty laugh came back. It was almost comforting in the darkness. “Just wanted to see how you reacted.”

‘Well there you go,’ Scarlet thought to herself as she looked down to their hands, not quite brave enough to say it out loud.

And then Yvie started to laugh, a noise Scarlet would never ever get used to. 

“There’s your bomb.” Her hand slipped out of Scarlet’s and pointed in front of them, the remnants of a big silver helium balloon on the floor. “Good job I was here to protect you from that.”

Before she knew it they were back at the till, fixing each of Scarlet’s mistakes and counting out their float for the next day. They worked relatively well together, only managing to butt heads once more when Scarlet suggested they write out a whole new balance sheet instead of scribbling out a mistake and writing the new number next to it as Yvie wanted. She let it go in the end, her phone vibrating in her pocket with texts from the girls a constant reminder that she had a little red dress with her name on it waiting at home.

“Guess I’ll see you later,” Yvie murmured as they left the building, pacing down the road as Scarlet fumbled with the keys. She was a racehorse in the rain, taking her steps twice as fast as the average human as if the building was on fire.

“Where are you going?” Scarlet had to shout after her, half expecting Yvie to ignore her and keep walking anyway.

“Home?” She stopped up the road for a second and turned around. “Now if you don’t mind I have a bus I’m about to miss.”

About to insist she got in the car, Yvie was already far in the distance, slipping out of Scarlet’s vision in the rain by the time the doors were fully locked. Maybe wearing her glasses would have been useful after all.

Cringing as the puddles splashed up her legs, Scarlet ran to her car as fast as she could, throwing her phone onto the passenger seat and taking off down the road. Thankfully it didn’t take her long to catch Yvie, her dark hair poking out through her hoodie and already scraggly with rain.

“Hey!” She pulled up into the bus stop. “Get in, I’ll take you home.”

“What are you a stalker?” Yvie raised her arms in the air. “I’m fine, thank you.”

“You’re going to freeze.”

“The bus will be here any minute.”

Scarlet knew she should have just given in and turned around but she felt the guilt for their late departure weighing on her shoulders.

“Look Yvie-” Scarlet started but was cut off by a loud beeping behind her, just making out an angry bus driver in her rearview mirror. 

“Move or it’ll drive past!” Yvie cried at her, the usual monotone of her voice rising in pitch.

“Sorry, what was that?” Scarlet attempted some humour, grinning from ear to ear as the bus pulled away. “Oops! Guess you’ll just have to have a nice warm lift instead of getting the bus with a load of drunkards.”

Yvie didn’t speak at first, simply pulling the car door open and plonking herself down, arms folded like a huffy toddler. But as Scarlet began to follow the directions she gave it was almost as if the other girl couldn’t help herself from falling back into their usual rapport of snide remarks and winding each other up.

“So do you always kidnap people in your Fiat 500 or is this something new for you?”

If this were any other member of staff, Scarlet knew she’d call them ungrateful but it was almost like her brain had learned a new language with Yvie, acknowledging and adapting to the different way she showed her emotions.

“You’re welcome.” Scarlet turned the heating up a notch, hearing the chatter of Yvie’s teeth between words. “And this isn’t even a Fiat 500.”

“Apologies,” Yvie responded. She was the difference between rudeness and bluntness that Scarlet figured many people couldn’t see, always honest and unbashful but never actually impolite.

Scarlet’s phone rang three times on their way to Yvie’s house and she didn’t even try to answer.

“Thanks for the lift,” Yvie whispered as Scarlet pulled up to the curb, the lights all turned off in the semi-detached next to them. “Even if you did leave me no other choice.”

Scarlet released a sigh and smiled at the return of the girl’s cynical side.

“There’s the Yvie, I know. Thought I’d lost you, being nice to me for a second!”

“Yeah well, you caught me on an off day.” She gathered her things and opened the door. “Don’t go telling anyone I went soft on you, I have a reputation to uphold.”

And she was up the path before Scarlet could think of a response, leaving her a baffling mess of feelings who couldn’t help but hear a certain laugh bouncing around inside the car even when she turned the music up loud and tried to distract herself from Yvie. 

A distraction technique she had to use after every shift for a month.

Scarlet had never planned for the lifts to become part of her routine, it just sort of happened. She told herself that she wouldn’t have let one of the girls from school or her younger sister ever wait in the rain for the bus so it was common sense not to let Yvie do that either. After a little while of Scarlet ranting about how it was safer and faster for Yvie to go home with her instead of catching the bus every time they left work together, Yvie stopped trying to argue and simply started hopping in the passenger seat. Of course, she did this in the most classic of Yvie fashions and told Scarlet she was only agreeing so she didn’t have to listen to her whiney speeches about the dangers of the dark every night but it made Scarlet feel better still. Even if she did receive an average of three sarcastic responses to her comments each time.

Slowly but surely, the eggshell around Yvie began to peel away. Scarlet discovered through blunt replies Yvie loved learning about international relations and global conflict, that she wanted to go to Uni to study them despite the high offer and the money that went with the dream. Despite the fact that only one per cent of the campus she wanted to be a part of was black. Ignoring that her teacher had told her to play things safer.

Yvie was real and passionate and thriving and everything Scarlet admired.

Yes, she was still the same sarcastic self she always was behind the cafe counter but she was even more than that underneath the fluorescent lights in Scarlet’s car. A small chunk of the divide between them had been left at the bus stop in the rain while they basked in the warm air shooting out of the vents.

Scarlet was hesitant to call Yvie a friend, they didn’t really chat and gossip - as she did with Plastique, Naomi and Pearl - and when they did at least half of their conversation was made up of insults but Scarlet liked it. Yvie was a refreshing change from the girls she was surrounded with every day at school and Scarlet wanted to drink that in as much as she could. Even if Yvie did still hate her.

In fact, Yvie had started to use those exact words as a regular comeback to Scarlet’s dramatics, rolling her eyes to match.

“Would you hate me if we stop for food before I drop you off?” Scarlet asked one night. “I’m honestly starved.”

“I already hate you, don’t think food would change that.” Yvie laughed.

That fucking laugh.

Scarlet hoped she only-half meant it. But she never really knew for sure. 

Making their way into the food chain, Scarlet’s mind was too consumed with the thought of what she was going to order to even realise that her friends were there until she heard her name.

“Hey, sweets.” Naomi smiled from the table. “I thought you were at your Dad’s work?”

“We were just on the way home and I got hungry.” Scarlet motioned to Yvie, stood almost a step behind her.

“Who’s this?” Plastique asked, raising a perfectly shaped brow. 

Opening her mouth to speak, Scarlet’s brain went blank for a second. She obviously wanted to tell the girls about Yvie but never knew what to say, she didn’t even know what they were herself nevermind having to explain it to them.

How do you say, ‘this girl works for my Dad and I drive her home every night whilst we listen to Lady Gaga in almost complete silence except for when she insults me because she maybe hates me or I try to get on her nerves because I maybe fancy her,’ in a clear and concise way?

“Erm, this is…” She tried to start but was stopped by Yvie herself.

“I’ll go order our food.” 

“Oh,” Scarlet turned, pulling her purse from her pocket. “Here let me pay.”

“It’s fine.” Yvie turned her back. “I guess I owe you a lot of petrol money anyway.”

Her words struck Scarlet a little different. They lacked any emotion, spoken from dead eyes and a stern face. She relived those words a lot in the next few weeks, popping into her head again at the most random of times. For they were the last words she heard Yvie speak for a while, ignoring any effort Scarlet made to chat, even when she gave her perfect opportunities to poke fun at her like bringing up her house team at school or her sister’s upcoming dance recital (Scarlet knew how much humour Yvie found in the fact that their names were just stupid ways of saying red and yellow and normally laughed whenever Scarlet even mentioned Lemon).

“I won’t be able to give you a lift home next week.” She’d told her as they pulled up to Yvie’s house, ready to explain that Pearl had bought them tickets to a theatre show and it started too early. But Yvie hopped out of the car before she could even finish, leaving Scarlet with even more confusion about how the girl felt.

Because Yvie was still Yvie after all. And Scarlet realised after that particular journey that it would take a lot more than a few rides home to get them anywhere close to being classed as friends.

An observation in Scarlet’s mind that only grew stronger over the weeks following, especially when she decided it would be okay to join everyone on one of their regular staff nights out. A decision tinged with regret as soon as she entered the pub.

_ “Dress was a big mistake!!!! Huge !!! xx”  _ Scarlet texted her teenage sister aggressively from under the table as if it would somehow fix her situation.

Excited to hit the town with everyone from the centre, she’d spent all day getting prepped and ready, letting Lemon paint her nails as they pondered over what she should wear. Eventually, they’d settled on a shimmery gold Oh Polly number she’d worn to Naomi’s birthday the year prior, her jewellery matching just right. 

Only that didn’t matter once she arrived, riving her necklace from her throat as soon as she saw the rest of the staff. With all the other girls in bodysuits and trainers, she was the definition of overdressed and out of place.

It started small at first, hearing someone whisper something including the word “Daddy” as she made her way to the tables, one of the girls from the front desk asking her if she was gonna be getting the rounds in all night. 

“Scarlet, come sit here!” Heidi had waved at her over, allowing for a second to catch her breath.

Only her nerves didn’t go away once she joined their booth. In fact, they only grew larger when she caught Yvie’s gaze, her eyes wide at Scarlet in a face she’d never quite seen the girl make before. She’d fought hard to ignore it, but her eyes couldn’t stop from glancing back every few seconds, wondering what it was exactly that Yvie’s face was speaking into the universe around them.

Knowing Yvie it was probably something along the lines of ‘What the fuck is the primadonna doing here in that dress’ but she didn’t know for sure, trying her best to join in their conversation and catch the familiar side of the other girl she’d caught glimpses of over the past few months.

“So, whose ID are you using?” Scarlet asked her in an effort to make conversation, having learnt from the walkie talkies that Heidi was usually Yvie’s go-to girl when she went out with her other friends, despite them looking nothing alike.

“Here.” Yvie slid it across the table for Scarlet to examine, the other girls in the booth taking a look too.

“I know her!” Jaida exclaimed. “Chile, I did her prom makeup a couple years ago.”

“Perks of Brooke’s new girlfriend. I now have black friends that aren’t you guys I can borrow ID from. Not the best though, it’s a good job they never actually look properly.”

“Wait.” Priyanka raised two hands in the air. “You’re telling me that your gal Brooke has an official girlfriend? I thought they were just fucking about, damn!”

“Oh, not this again!” Heidi joined in. “We get it, Pri. You got together once and she didn’t remember your name. Move on!”

Scarlet checked her phone to see if her sister had replied but saw nothing, resorting to scrolling through her own photo album and reshuffling her apps so she didn’t look left out. Listening to the girls continue to gossip about people she didn’t know, Scarlet began to question the friendships she’d made at the centre, little voices in her head telling her that none of them would ever like her enough to open up and gossip with her as they did with one another.

For as long as she remembered she had always been confident, never caring what others thought of her. But as she started to gulp her drink down faster than normal, Scarlet felt that confidence slip away more and more. She was so far out of her comfort zone she couldn’t have made it back on a giant jet plane at full speed. And Yvie’s big brown eyes taking stolen glances at her didn’t make any of it better.

“It’s okay, Pri.” Jaida’s voice pulled Scarlet back into their conversation. “At least Yvie remembered your name when you two got with each other!”

“Oh, fuck off!” Yvie slammed her glass onto the table at the same time Scarlet spat some of her drink back into her own.

What an elegant lady she was.

She’d always just assumed that Yvie was into girls too. There was just something about hearing it for real that made Scarlet’s central nervous system stop working for a second, starting again with a scare.

“That was one time,” Priyanka cried from the opposite side of the booth, thankfully oblivious of Scarlet’s reaction.

Only someone wasn’t as oblivious. Someone was looking right at her and sending every thought, every feeling, every fear inside of Scarlet into overdrive.

***

Yvie wasn’t a stranger to awful dancing. After all, she had been friends with Nina for the majority of life, the girl whose feet were built of hard oak and desperation.

But this was something different altogether.

Watching Scarlet across the dance floor, the phrase 'Bambi on ice' brought a whole new meaning to Yvie. If she wasn’t so mad at her she’d go over herself, give the girl a twirl and watch as she missed every beat like she had no cares in the world. Only that wasn’t the case, because mad Yvie certainly was.

Yvie didn’t know why she felt so hurt, it wasn’t like they were friends? It wasn’t like she even liked Scarlet? But something about having to stand there while she scrambled for an explanation of who she was to her privately educated, life’s not fair, acrylic nailed girl gang made Yvie’s blood boil. And she’d never admitted it but she may have even shed a tear or two once her blinds were shut and she couldn’t see the not-Fiat 500 and the annoying girl who drove it.

To think she’d started to believe that she was only fifty-five per cent sure of her hatred.

“Staring much?” She could hear the raise of Heidi’s brow in her words as she spoke to her ear, the loud bass around them not heavy enough to drown out the accusation in her friend’s voice.

Yvie couldn’t even deny it, for she’d been staring at Scarlet from the moment she’d walked into the pub earlier. Of course, she’d stalked the girl’s Instagram enough to know what Scarlet looked like dressed up, rolling her eyes at the dumb self-indulgent captions that were always attached to her selfies. Only it was different in person, a mix of gold and warmth and beauty and envy that made Yvie want to snap a pencil in half (she settled for a paper straw instead which certainly did not give the same level of relief). She’d watched as Scarlet ripped a necklace from her neck earlier and longed to put it back on for her, taking her time to hook it on the right loop so that it would hang perfectly above her collarbone. 

She tried to fixate on the memory of Scarlet squealing every time they went over the speed bumps outside of their work to give herself the ick. Only that image had become entwined with one of Scarlet getting out the car one night to help a cat out of the road and Yvie only felt more confused. 

“I’m just judging her dancing abilities,” Yvie lied.

She knew it was a lie. Heidi, who once confidently believed that Jaida had found a ghost in the dodgeball cupboard, knew it was a lie. The whole club knew it was a lie just from Yvie’s expression. Did lying count as breaking your streak of tough love and honesty if you wanted to believe you were telling the truth so badly? Is lying even lying if it’s yourself you're lying to? Yvie didn’t know. All she knew was that red and gold looked so good together it should have been illegal. Only it was herself breaking the law when her eyes met Scarlet’s again, holding for a second before she turned to walk away.

The songs all blurred into one once Scarlet was gone, Yvie’s brain out of focus. That was until she was snapped back by a familiar squark pulling her away from her work friends.

“Hey, Yvie! Or should I say Akeria tonight?” Vanessa grinned, a loved-up Brooke with her arm around the other girl’s waist.

“Thanks again.” Yvie tapped her nose, grateful for Brooke’s new relationship and the new friends that had come with it. “I owe you a drink.”

“So where is she then?” Brooke piped up, straight to the point and not wasting time with any cordial greetings on her best friend.

“Priyanka?” Yvie squinted in confusion for a second, wondering why Brooke wanted to see a girl she had previously hooked up with and usually refused to speak about when all she’d talked about for the past few months was how excited she was every Wednesday night to eat special chicken stew and watch soap operas that she pretended to hate at Vanessa’s house.

“No!” Brooke raised a hand to her mouth, her eyes leaping to Vanessa for a split second. “Ja’mie Private School Girl. I wanna see her in person.”

“Oh.” Yvie’s brain slotted the pieces together. Had she really complained about Scarlet that much?

“Is this the girl you always ragin’ about?” Vanessa joined in.

Okay, maybe she did complain about Scarlet too much.

“I’m not sure where she’s at.” She brushed them off, the memory of Scarlet telling her she couldn’t take her home anymore after seeing her friends tinging Yvie sharply, her face starting to flush. “I’m gonna go to the loo but I’ll get you that drink later?”

“Noted.” Brooke pointed a finger, the sound of their voices carrying as Yvie ran desperately to splash her face with some cold water.

Only she never quite made it to the sink, the sight of an upset red-head stopping her as soon as she entered the toilets.

Yvie went to speak but wasn’t given a chance.

“Go away.” Scarlet’s voice wavered as she knelt down, pulling jackets out from under the couch like they were infested.

“I can’t believe you didn’t pay for the cloakroom.” Yvie joined her on the carpet. “Out of character for you.”

“I said go away.” She turned her head to Yvie, her bloodshot eyes living up to her name.

Yvie felt the sudden urge to scoop Scarlet in her arms and cradle her there till the music stopped and the lights turned off and there was no one left in the building. She felt a need she never knew existed.

“Hey. It’s alright, I can help you…”

But Scarlet had already found her jacket and started racing out of the club as though her life depended on it.

“For fuck sake, Scarlet.” Yvie reached for her arm once they were outside, the cold air penetrating through her bodysuit and making her long for the comfort of her bed at home. “Just talk to me.”

She turned, her face illuminated under the street lamps, full of anger and sadness and perhaps a tinge of pain too.

“Why do you want to talk to me? You hate me.”

“I don’t.” Yvie squeezed her arm slightly and looked her in the eyes to try and show that she meant it. Because sometimes her words failed her and she struggled to sound sincere when in her mind she was, so she had to rely on her actions. All she had at that moment was a gentle squeeze to try and show Scarlet that she meant it. She didn’t hate her. She didn’t know when that had changed or if she'd really hated her in the first place but at that moment she was one-hundred per cent certain, the feeling was nothing like hatred.

Scarlet scoffed and pulled away, tapping her phone furiously with her nails. “You tell me you hate me nearly every day I spend with you.”

Yvie tried to argue back but Scarlet was on a mission, waving her hands in the air when she spoke.

“And if you’re not doing that then you’re bitching about me through the walkie talkies. Or giving me dirty looks. I try my best to pass it off and rise above it Yvie but tonight I just can’t anymore, I just want to live and breathe without you looking at me like I’ve shot Bambi’s mother. Like what did I even do to you?”

‘Everything,’ Yvie thought only it came out as a blunt “nothing” instead. “You’re the one that was embarrassed to be seen with me in public.”

“I wasn’t embarrassed, Yvie. Sorry it took me a minute to try and think of something other than ‘a girl I drive around even though she hates me.’” Scarlet kept taking glances between the road and her phone, not meeting Yvie’s eyes. “Or doesn’t hate me,  _ apparently _ . And I just had plans after our next shift.”

Without knowing what she was doing, Yvie reached out to grab her hand, slipping her fingers through Scarlet’s and clasping like they had done the day Scarlet was scared by the balloon. Scarlet was right. Maybe she was too fast to jump to conclusions. She was up in the sky leaping on the trampolines at work whilst Scarlet was grounded by the cafe, taking herself to a whole new narrative that didn’t really exist. In other words, she’d fucked it.

“I don’t hate you.” Yvie expected Scarlet to let go. She didn’t.

“Well, you don’t act like it.”

But her hand didn’t leave, Yvie had hope. Not a lot, just a slither like the piece of Scarlet’s hair that stayed in front of her face when she pushed the rest back. But it was still hope, it was still something. 

“Please just let me explain.” Yvie tried to make Scarlet understand.

She’d spent years trying to dial and change how she spoke. If the black girl in the class raised her voice then she was angry but if she didn’t put up a fight with her words then nobody would take her seriously. All she wanted was to be honest, but the words were flying around her head and wouldn't stop to land. And then Scarlet’s Uber started to pull up and they were going even faster. Scarlet turned to look at her and Yvie watched as she opened her mouth for a second but no words came out, her eyes frustrated and begging Yvie to fix things.

She waited for the rejection, for Scarlet to push her away as she moved closer, for her to call Yvie crazy and jump in the car, ready to make her time at work even more of a living hell than she already did. But as her lips met Scarlet’s, it never came.

“Your Uber.” Yvie pulled away slightly, their faces only an inch apart and Scarlet gasping for breath. She could feel Scarlet’s sticky gloss on her own lips but didn’t dare wipe at it, wanting the moment to go on like that for as long as it could.

“I guess I’ve gotten used to riding in the car with someone.” Scarlet took her hand again once the car pulled up, their eyes communicating in their own language that Yvie didn’t have the words to explain.

Yvie pulled her phone out to text the girls and tell them she’d headed home, dropping another one to home with an excuse for staying out, feeling Scarlet on her neck as they clambered into the backseat. They didn’t speak for a short while, Yvie simply placed her arm around Scarlet’s shoulder as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if she hadn’t spent months terrified of making contact with her.

“I thought you couldn’t stand me,” Scarlet whispered in her ear, her hand burning hot on Yvie’s thigh.

Suddenly Scarlet’s flair for the dramatics was wiped clean from her mental list of things that irked her, replaced accordingly with the concept of clothing, more specifically jeans. Her jeans, that she regretted spending a lot of money on - wishing she’d settled for the paper-thin pair Nina had told her to get from Primark instead. In fact, she’d have paid more for the thin pair right then. Paid anything for Scarlet’s hand to live there just a little bit longer. Yvie let the back of her head hit the seat, lost in the moment until they pulled up to Scarlet’s house.

“We’ll have to be careful,” Scarlet spoke after unlocking the door. “My sister’s home.”

“Does noise even travel here?” Yvie looked around the foyer only half-joking, stopping to chuckle at a big photo of Scarlet and her sister as kids. “Adorable.”

“If you’re loud enough.” Scarlet raised a brow and motioned for Yvie to follow her upstairs, sending tingles through her body at her words.

“I don’t think I’m gonna be the one who needs to worry about keeping quiet.” Yvie let Scarlet lead her to her room, throwing themselves down on the four-poster almost immediately. 

It felt weird finally being in Scarlet’s room after spending so long of interacting at work. She couldn’t say she hadn’t pictured it, often imagining Scarlet painting her toes on top of magazines or picking out her outfit each morning. Too distracted to get a proper look at all the photo frames and trinkets around, Yvie made a mental note to make a joke the next day about how she’d always assumed Scarlet had one of those grey crushed velvet headboards like the girls on Twitter.

It was crazy how something could feel so wrong and so right at the same time. Scarlet’s body pressing into her own, it was so insane yet made complete sense. She felt familiar.

Before she knew it Scarlet’s thumb was rubbing over the fabric of her bodysuit, teasing at her nipple through the lace.

Yvie had never been more grateful for her decision not to wear a bra.

“Are you sure you want this?” Scarlet asked her, pausing in her movement to look Yvie in the eyes and confirm. “We can’t go back.”

Yvie knew what she meant, thinking of all the shifts she’d have to spend with her, pinning Scarlet’s new promotional posters around the park, being watched to make sure she placed them in the exact right spots. She’d be unavoidable. But Yvie didn’t care. 

“I’ve wanted this ever since you stole a Coke Zero from the cafe.”

Apparently, that was all Scarlet needed, taking the opportunity to smash her lips against Yvie’s, letting their bodies melt into each other. Again and again and again until Yvie was weak with fatigue and let her head hit the pillow one final time. Her vision blurred, she could just make out Scarlet’s figure among all of the stars as the girl switched off the bedside lamp and crawled into bed beside her. They hadn’t just shaken the earth but the whole solar system too, galaxies swirling around the room and lulling Yvie to sleep. 

A sleep she’d have happily basked in forever if she hadn’t woken with a jolt the next morning, the sun beaming through the blinds to cast light on the empty side of the bed next to her.

“Morning,” Scarlet’s spoke from across the room, wearing a pair of glasses that Yvie had never seen before as she looked up from the papers at her desk. Yvie suddenly understood Scarlet’s constant examining gaze - she wasn’t scanning Yvie’s insides for error codes, just a tad bit blind.

Grabbing her phone from the bedside, a groan escaped Yvie’s mouth as she saw the time, of course, Scarlet was awake at nine in the morning after a night out. After what Yvie would estimate to be at least two hours of sex. Kind of intense sex. If it hadn’t been for Scarlet’s pretty face and messy hair then Yvie would have snatched the nearest pillow and thrown it over her head, instead, keeping an eye open to watch her whilst fighting exhaustion.

She wondered how long it would take them to address it. In the past, Yvie had never felt awkward discussing a hookup, giving a compliment or laughing it off as a drunken mishap like she had with Priyanka that time. The thought crossed her mind for a second, thinking she could make a joke about how smashed they were before ringing Brooke to take her home as fast as she could but Yvie decided against it. If Yvie was anything then Yvie was honest. And she knew what happened was not a drunken mistake. At least not on her end, she didn’t know if the same could be said for Scarlet, sat twiddling her pen around in her hand as though Yvie wasn’t lying in her bed and her gold dress wasn’t in a heap on the floor, thrown there in a moment of passion. Looking at it made her laugh, thinking of how fast she’d gone from describing Scarlet’s whining as the human equivalent of a dog whistle wit Jaida, to finding herself turned on by it. Scarlet must have noticed her looking, placing the pen down.

“I think you owe me a new zipper for that.” She pointed to the dress, raising a brow at Yvie.

“Sorry, I’ll take it to get fixed.” Yvie went to step out of bed before realising her own clothes were just as haphazardly spread as Scarlet’s.

“I’m kidding,” Scarlet smiled. “I’ll get you some joggers to borrow.”

“You own tracksuit bottoms?” Yvie fake gasped as Scarlet pulled open a drawer, surprising herself at how quickly they returned to their usual exchanges. There she was making fun of Scarlet for being all posh and dramatic, it was like nothing had changed. Except she was in Scarlet’s bed. Naked. And they’d had sex. Maybe a lot had changed.

“Oh my god, I just got it.” Scarlet pointed a finger to Yvie and let out one of her classic giggles. “That is hilarious.”

“What is?” Yvie pulled the clothes Scarlet had given her on quickly, automatically ready with her defence.

“That face you always pull at me! I honestly thought it was just your expression of pure hatred at my being but it’s not, you were eyeing me up!”

Yvie stifled a laugh at Scarlet’s hysteria, her cheeks turning the slightest bit red. “I don’t pull a face at you.”

“You so do. Like this.” Scarlet did her best to impersonate her.

“I don’t do that. And I don’t eye you up either, you’re so annoying.”

“Want me to prove you do?” Scarlet flipped the conversation and caught Yvie off guard. 

She hadn’t expected round two to come at all nevermind that fast, but she most certainly wasn’t mad at it.

The same could have also been said for round three, which happened around a week later when Yvie just so happened to take her lunch break at the same time as Scarlet, following her out to her car and letting Scarlet drive a couple of minutes to somewhere more secluded. The sun beamed down through the windscreen and glistened on Scarlet’s pale skin as they moved together rapidly, the pair already becoming familiar with the little easter eggs that made each other tick.

“Ten minutes to spare, wow.” Yvie checked the time on her phone, allowing herself to lie back in as much comfort as she could given that she was in the back of a rather tiny car with a rather tall girl by her side.

“What are we doing?” Scarlet sat up, hitting her head slightly on the roof but not acknowledging it, a trait Yvie had picked up on before having watched Scarlet’s clumsy legs take many tumbles around the centre only for her to keep walking like it hadn’t happened (Yvie always found this funnier than the fall itself, especially that one time it was a running child that sent Scarlet tumbling, utterly priceless).

“Erm, lying in the back of your car trying to remember how to breathe?” Yvie knew it wasn’t the answer she was looking for but gave it nonetheless. 

“No. This, us. What is this?”

Yvie wished she knew the answer. At first, she didn’t know how to approach her, bringing the borrowed clothes to work in a carrier bag ready to return, only to be left silent once Scarlet came to the counter to fulfil her caffeine addiction that day. But Scarlet managed to break the ice, making a subtle joke about her lack of regret as she took the bottle from Yvie’s hand. It was bittersweet - Yvie knew there was a clear distinction between having no regrets and wanting to do something again, and she was at least seventy per cent sure she wanted to do it again. Ninety-nine once the opportunity had finally risen again, Scarlet dangling her car keys in front of Yvie like the forbidden fruit of Eden. An apple she couldn’t help but take a bite from, no matter how much it would bite her back later. 

So Yvie thought about her answer, she didn’t want to get this one wrong. The natural answer was that they were friends, only Yvie knew they weren't. They were less than friends, they didn’t chat and gossip like friends and frankly she couldn’t stand Scarlet most of the time, the chatting and gossiping with her  _ actual  _ friends at work usually revolving around that fact. Yet they were also so much more, Yvie’s eyes followed the girl wherever she went like she was being guided home and her heart had just about snapped in two when she saw Scarlet upset.

Maybe it wasn't Scarlet she hated but instead the way she felt about her. Or the way she didn't even understand what that feeling was. Perhaps that is what she’d hated all along.

“I don’t know.” Yvie stepped outside to straighten her uniform and move to the passenger seat.

“You don’t know?” Scarlet joined her in the front, slamming her door a tad too hard once her foot was inside. “You always have an answer for everything.”

“Well, do you?” Yvie retaliated.

“I’m the one who asked in the first place!”

As much as she wanted to, Yvie couldn’t deny she had a point there.

“Well whatever it is, I’m glad to see we disagree on it already,” Yvie replied as Scarlet started to drive back to work.

“You can take me on a date sometime if you’d like.” Scarlet let the words jump out of her mouth quickly just before the traffic lights turned green, acting completely casual and nonchalant just like she had after hitting her head as if nothing had happened at all.

“A date?” Yvie’s voice raised an octave higher than it should have. 

“You know where two people who kind of fancy each other go and get food? It’s a pretty basic term, I thought you’d know seen as you’re crazy clever and going to the best University in the country.”

Yvie choked on her water and sent it flying down the wrong way, a mess of coughs and splutters next to Scarlet’s pristine self. It wouldn’t have been the worst way to die, at least she’d never feel the embarrassment afterwards and have the dignity of knowing she’d given the girl a good time just before.

“I haven’t gotten in yet.” Yvie’s mind was thrown away from the conversation and back to the impending doom of her University application. Thank god she always had Scarlet to remind her of the massive feat she was trying to achieve.

“You can say no if you want, I don’t care.” Scarlet pulled into the car park, not really caring that her wheels were at a forty-five-degree angle and only just within the lines. 

Yvie thought of all the times she had come up with convoluted methods to avoid Scarlet’s presence after their first meeting, of that first day she’d been given a lift home and how much had changed since then. Scarlet was confident and sometimes lived on a different planet to Yvie altogether but that didn’t hide her warmth, her wit or the big smile that came on her face whenever she tried to dance. And as much as she was shocked by her own thoughts, Yvie couldn’t deny that an evening with that warmth, wit and smile was all she really needed to relieve her stress.

“Well, where would you like to go for food then?” Yvie asked her as they entered the building, ready to part ways until the end of the day.

“Sorry, you’ll have to come up with that one on your own.” Scarlet grinned. “And please don’t fuck it up, Yvie.”

***

Throughout her eight years of education, Scarlet had only ever been late twice: once in year five when her Dad’s car had gotten stuck in the snow and they had to push it out of the drive, then again in year twelve when Pearl left her phone in the Urban Outfitters changing rooms on their free and made Scarlet drive her back to get it. It was her ultimate pet hate. Which was why she felt like the biggest dick on the planet standing in the hallway of her sister’s dance school furiously peeking her head through windows at the grand time of seven fifty-two, almost twenty-five minutes after she was due to meet Yvie.

_ “I’m so so so so sorry, I’ll be there soon xx” _

She typed quickly as she paced the halls, no time to think and stress over how many kisses to send or whether she should have added emojis like she normally would have. If Yvie was difficult to read in person, Scarlet had discovered over the past week that she was even harder to understand over text as they’d gone over the plan for their date. A plan that was currently unravelling like a broken cassette tape before her eyes, too far gone to wind back up by the time she found her sister.

“Oooh, you look nice!” Lemon exclaimed as she left the studio, already trailing behind as Scarlet did her best attempt at power walking back to her car. 

“You were supposed to be done forty-five minutes ago!” Scarlet could feel her face starting to sweat with stress, worried about how awful her makeup would look by the time she met Yvie. If Yvie was still even there. “I told you to be on time, I have plans!”

“Sorry, rehearsal just ran over and I couldn’t leave. Can I have the AUX?”

Scarlet pressed her foot on the accelerator an ounce more than she normally would, looking frantically in her mirror. “No! And you can tell Dad that I’m never picking you up ever again.”

Before Lemon could start her usual monologue about the hardships of life as a talented dancer the pair were interrupted by the ringing of Scarlet’s phone.

Shit.

“Answer it and put it on speaker.” She snapped to her sister, taking a deep breath before she addressed Yvie. “Hey, I’m so sorry about being late, I’ll be there as quickly as I can, just give me five minutes.”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it, I’m just gonna head home.”

Scarlet almost slammed the breaks then and there. She knew Yvie so she knew that she wasn’t fine, she was the absolute antithesis of fine. What a way to fuel the hatred train back up again - did they give out trophies for these sorts of things? If they did she certainly deserved one, imagining her pathetic figure made of gold resin, holding a tiny clock and bottle of Coke Zero with the title “Best at Getting Your Crush To Despise You” engraved on a plaque underneath. They could plop it on top of her grave. Or maybe Lemon’s, depending of course on how much her sister would grovel after this.

“No, no, I’m coming.” Scarlet made the executive decision to take a left turn on the roundabout rather than right, heading straight for the centre of town and jabbing Lemon in the ribs with her elbow as she tried to pipe up.

“It’s fine, I’m just leaving the restaurant now. I really don’t feel up for this anymore, it was stupid anyway.”

“Yvie, I’m literally around the corner. Please can you wait?” Scarlet didn’t care how desperate she sounded because that’s exactly what she was, she’d write it on her forehead and scream it from the top of her lungs if she had to (she hoped she didn’t have to but would still take all means necessary if they were required).

“Are you literally around the corner? Is it written in a book word for word? That would be a terrible book, I don’t know who’s reading that.”

Scarlet didn’t know whether Yvie’s sarcasm was a good or bad sign but kept going anyway.

“Well I apologise for my use of the word to the English student in you but I am very close.” Scarlet scanned the street, spotting Yvie’s tall frame and dark hair storming down the road in front of her, pulling off double-denim in a cool and effortless way that no one else could even try to compete with. “In fact, I can  _ literally _ see you.”

Scarlet pulled up to the curb and hung up, telling Lemon to keep her trap shut for a moment as she waited for Yvie to approach the car, a sense of deja vu filling her at the thought of chasing down a stomping Yvie in her car. God, she must look like a psychopath sometimes.

“Hello.” Yvie peered in the window, looking between the two sisters awkwardly, clearly too cautious to give Scarlet whatever rant she had been planning in her head for the past half an hour in front of her sister. Scarlet was almost grateful for her presence before remembering that she wouldn’t be in such a mess if it weren't for Lemon in the first place.

“You look beautiful.” She simply stated, the thought coming out of her mouth just as fast as it had popped into her mind in the first place when she saw Yvie’s face; her cheeks glowing with blush and her eyes enhanced by the most meticulously placed false lashes. Scarlet wanted to ask Yvie how she managed to put them on without them popping off or looking stupid like whenever she tried but figured it was a conversation to be saved for when she wasn’t fighting for her right to date. “Get in the back?”

Half expecting Yvie to walk away, Scarlet felt a wave of relief wash over her windscreen when Yvie reached for the handle and plonked herself into Scarlet’s backseat. Explaining why she was late and why her sister was still in the car, Scarlet glanced at Yvie’s face in the rearview mirror as she spoke.

“I didn’t want you to leave so I just came as fast as I could. We can drop this little shit home then go back out?” Scarlet finished, overjoyed when Yvie finally nodded her head and mumbled in agreement.

“Now that that’s over, I have so many questions.” Yvie turned her head to Lemon, placing a hand on the back of her seat. “Has Scarlet always been like this?”

“Excuse me! Like what?” Scarlet squealed in response, pretending to be annoyed but unable to keep the smile off of her face at the return of the Yvie she knew so fondly.

“Yes.” Lemon turned her head to the back. “I have so many stories you wouldn’t believe.”

“Oh my god, Scarlet. Can she stay?”

“She most certainly cannot.” Scarlet gave her sister a warning look that told her exactly how much of that grovelling would be necessary if she told even the prologue of an embarrassing childhood story. She would squeeze her sister to a pulp, no pun intended.

At least she wouldn’t have to do her half of the house jobs when she got home that night.

“I like her!” Lemon grinned before facing Yvie again.

“Fantastic.” Scarlet shook her head, listening as her sister and her date/enemy/crush/friend with benefits carried on bonding for the rest of the journey, Yvie nearly shattering the window with her cackle after Lemon told her about the Youtube channel Scarlet had tried to start in year nine. A part of Scarlet’s body warmed at their conversation, an image of Yvie sitting in the spare seat at the dining table for a family meal materialising in her head before she could try and shoo it away (she wasn’t even fully certain that Yvie even liked her as a person yet never mind wanted to become an honorary team member during their games night). However, that certainly didn’t mean she wasn’t happy to see the back of Lemon once they pulled up the house and Yvie made her way to the passenger seat instead.

“Hi.” Yvie turned to face her, the car still parked in front of Scarlet’s gates, not ready to pull away just yet.

“Hello.” Scarlet laughed, breathing every ounce of Yvie in that she hadn’t been able to reach earlier.

“Your sister’s nice. Like a younger version of you, except cool.”

Scarlet shot a pointed look Yvie’s way, something she had done many times in this position, Yvie firing shady comments from her passenger seat whilst she tried her best to keep living her fantasy. Only this time was different, gone was Yvie’s uniform and the guise of a lift home, she was categorically and undeniably there just to spend time with Yvie, to bask in her presence. And Yvie felt...the same? Scarlet didn’t know for sure, but the dark lips on Yvie’s lips told her at least one thing, she had made an effort. And it paid so much more than minimum wage.

“You don’t think I’m cool?” She grinned, ready for whatever read was coming her way.

“The opposite.” Yvie leaned across the centre console, her hand delicate in Scarlet’s freshly curled hair as she pulled her in for a kiss.

Getting herself carried away, it took Scarlet a few minutes to pull away, taking a breath she hadn’t realised she needed.

“So you’re not mad at me anymore?”

“I won’t be if you drive us somewhere with food,” Yvie replied, pouting her lips like a toddler - Scarlet saw how she’d already started to rub off on the other girl, subtle traits sticking to Yvie’s skin like perfume. 

“I see how it is!” She turned the keys and set off to drive, pretending to be offended but secretly doing mental cartwheels (or whatever her attempt at a cartwheel would look like) at the thought that Yvie would rather spend time speaking to her than just hooking up in the car. Of course Scarlet really liked the sex, maybe going as far to say she adored it. But it didn’t make her giddy like sitting across Yvie in a secluded booth did, hiding her blush by taking deep dives into her fishbowl every time Yvie made her laugh or said something a tad too flirty than normal (which averaged to around once every two and a half minutes if Scarlet’s awful maths brain was of any use).

“Are you looking forward to moving away next year?” Scarlet had asked her, three drinks and a shared platter of nachos later. 

“I told you, I haven’t gotten in yet. You need to stop speaking like it’s definite.” Yvie tapped a finger to Scarlet’s wrist before pointing it back in her face, the contact sending the fizzy bubbles from Scarlet’s drink right into her veins, flowing from her head to the tip of her toes.

“Oh my god, you’re gonna get in.” Scarlet looked into her eyes, grateful for her decision to wear contacts so she could see them, really see them - big brown pools of melted chocolate that glistened under the restaurant lighting.

“That’s easy for you to say, Miss  _ I pay five grand a year for my education _ . I’m not building my hopes up, I don’t even know anyone black who’s applied nevermind gotten in before.”

Scarlet took the chance to hold her hand, her way of telling Yvie that she deserved it, that she was the hardest worker she knew. She deserved it all, everything and more. 

“I don’t know about you,” Scarlet told herself to let go but couldn’t. “But that is not the determined Yvie I know, the one who would call out anyone for not giving one hundred to everything. You’re going, I know you are.”

“Thanks,” Yvie spoke quietly, her voice wavering a little before releasing a cough into her elbow and shaking herself off.

“Say it! You’re going.” Scarlet smiled. “If you don’t I’ll get another drink and get even more annoying. Four drink Scarlet likes to sing, you know?”

“I’m going,” Yvie repeated, giving Scarlet’s hand a tight squeeze. “And yeah, I am looking forward to it. It’s just a shame that I’ll be leaving some things behind.”

And when they had sex that night it was different. Not better. Not worse. Just different. Something extra in every touch, every movement, every look. The way they held each other when it was over, Scarlet curling up and nuzzling her head into Yvie’s chest before she fell asleep. The fact she was still like that once she woke, taking a risk by looking up and planting a quick peck on Yvie’s jawline, a term of endearment they hadn’t quite reached before. Scarlet danced clumsily on the line between friends with benefits and people who were actually dating, hoping that if she fell over to one side that Yvie would catch her. And she did, returning the kiss with another one planted on Scarlet’s forehead, strings tying them together that they didn’t know if they fully wanted yet but couldn’t untangle anymore.

Then other people started to see them too, the strings growing into a thicker rope, pulling them towards each other in one big tug of war.

“I hope you don’t mind but I told the girls from work about us,” Yvie announced from Scarlet’s desk one night, not turning around to look at Scarlet who was completing her own reading cross-legged on the bed.

Scarlet dropped her highlighter with surprise, leaving a pastel pink line on her duvet that she pretended not to notice till later. 

“What did you say?” 

Scarlet wasn’t a stranger to how Yvie had felt about her, remembering all the times she heard her making digs over the walkie talkies to the other girls when they thought she couldn’t hear. She tried to brush that off now, knowing that Yvie had transparent walls around herself, hidden to the naked eye - luckily Scarlet was confident in herself enough to trust her heart, to know that she wasn’t delusional and that the feelings she could see spilling from Yvie’s pores were real, even if she did tell her mother she was staying at Nina’s house every time she slept over.

“That we have sex?” She added quickly before Yvie could reply, a tiny part of her doubting her thoughts, resulting in one of Yvie’s mighty cartoon villain laughs.

“No, they knew that ages ago.” Yvie swivelled the chair around to give Scarlet a puzzling look. “I mean it doesn’t take a genius to work out that you don’t need two people to clean the disabled

toilet. And it doesn’t take that long.”

“Oh my god, you said we wouldn’t talk about that.” Scarlet felt her skin shiver at how nasty they had been that day, blaming Yvie for wearing new leggings when she had pulled her away near the start of her shift.

“Sorry.” Yvie held her hands up. “But yeah, I’m pretty sure they already knew we were fucking just not…” Yvie paused for a second, pursing her lips as she searched for the right words. “Hanging out, as well.”

“I see.” Scarlet shut her book, already way too distracted to regain focus. “So every time I told Priyanka we were going to Greggs and she asked me to bring her back a sausage roll she was just taking the piss? I’ve told her they’d ran out four times now!”

“You’re an idiot.” Yvie joined Scarlet in pushing the studying aside and slid onto the bed beside her.

“But you love it,” Scarlet replied, her mind too mushy at the news to consider her word choice, noticing how Yvie’s head jolted a touch once it had come out.

“Well, I just thought I’d tell them so it wasn’t awkward if you came to my birthday...Which you don’t have to attend if you don’t want to.” Yvie brought the conversation back on track, speaking matter of factly in a way that Scarlet had just grown to relish in. “But I kind of want you to.”

“Well, it’s a good job that I want to too then, isn’t it?” Scarlet grabbed her phone, trying her best to act coy as she composed a manic all caps message to her group chat, demanding assistance on an urgent, dress buying mission.

***

On Yvie’s tenth birthday she went to the cinema and discovered the magic of mixing sweets and chocolate in the box with the popcorn, something which she still did as a teenager every time she managed to convince Brooke to see the latest horror with her. On her sixteenth she drank cheap cider in the park and had her first real kiss, laughing all the way home while Nina asked one-hundred and one questions as if Yvie was some sort of make out messiah. Although she always brushed it off as something unimportant, Yvie adored the bubbles of excitement that fizzed inside of her every time her birthday rolled around. And her eighteenth was no exception.

“You didn't have to.” She hugged the photo frame to her chest, smothering her friends’ faces into the dark fabric of her top, knowing fine well that they’d already put some money towards Yvie’s share of their girls trip payments. She had the best friends in the world.

“So you don’t miss us too much at Uni.” Brooke grinned at her.

There was another person she’d disappoint when she failed and didn’t move away, cleaning up ice cream for the rest of her life. Yvie had only been eighteen for nineteen hours and was already feeling the crippling reality of adulthood.

Scarlet must have noticed because she rested a hand on Yvie’s wrist, a simple gesture that wouldn’t have read much to anyone else but Yvie felt under her skin and tissue and down to her bones. With her hair let loose behind her back and a shimmer of gold on her eyes, Yvie couldn't have hated her one bit.

“You look...nice.” She’d told Scarlet when she walked into her house, a bottle of what Yvie assumed to be champagne in her hand (she couldn’t read the label but figured Scarlet wasn’t one for prosecco).

“Get you! Learning how to compliment.” Scarlet had pulled her into a hug and Yvie saw a supercut of every contact they’d ever made. “I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Scarlet had probably been right (as much as Yvie  _ hated  _ admitting when she was right). Because every time she’d gone to tell Scarlet how she felt, an arrow of quick wit and insult humour had fired from her tongue, a barrier that forever stopped her from being the weak black girl some people expected her to be. Whatever it was they had it wasn’t perfect, but when Scarlet touched her wrist she was reminded for a second how grateful she was for it. How much she’d grown to need it.

Things only better as the night went on; the girls from work arrived and showered Yvie with love and homemade jager bombs. Priyanka even managed to say hello to Brooke without her eyes falling out of her head and her tongue dropping to the floor, earning herself a pat on the back from Heidi, who was celebrating Yvie’s birthday as if it was her own now that she’d never have to lend her ID out ever again (something that she reminded everyone of at least once every half an hour). Scarlet seemed to be having fun too, bonding with Nina over their shared love of visiting New York at Christmas and their bad dancing skills. It felt normal, almost too normal.

“She’s not as bad as you say she is.” Nina piped up once they were in their Uber, free from Scarlet and her burning ears for at least five minutes.

“She was pouring champagne into Vanjie’s mouth.” Yvie laughed. “Actual champagne!”

“Why did you invite her if you don’t like her so much then?”

Nina knew what she was asking. And Yvie knew the answer. Suddenly she was brought back to that day two years earlier, the kiss she’d shared with a girl from the year above, their legs dangling from the kid's jungle gym with the whole town below them.

_ “Is she, like, the one?” Nina had asked, talking at a rate of knots as they walked home. _

_ “I don’t know.” Yvie made an attempt to brush her off. It failed. _

_ “Did you feel butterflies? Like your heart racing and all that stuff.” _

_ “Nah, none of that,” Yvie replied. “It was nice but I didn’t feel any of that crazy stuff.” _

_ She was pretty sure that stuff was made up to boost romance novel sales anyways, but didn’t really fancy tearing her best friend down for the cloud fantasy she was living in. _

_ “Well, she mustn't be the one for you then.” Nina had linked her arm by that point, using her other hand to shine her phone torch on the ground below. “God, I get butterflies when anyone even looks at me! You’ll find someone who gives them to you soon, don’t worry.” _

Yvie didn’t think she would. And if she did she didn’t really think it would be her rich boss's daughter who played lacrosse and wrote revision notes like she was being tested on her penmanship. Yet there they were, flying around her stomach like they were on acid. She didn’t know when the stupid things had hatched from their cocoons but they certainly had - there wasn’t any turning back.

“Why don’t you tell her?” Brooke snapped Yvie back to reality, apparently not too busy grilling the driver for his life story to join in with the ambush.

Yvie didn’t bother asking what. Or answering her for that matter, instead, shrugging her shoulders in a simple way that utterly contrasted the web of complicated thoughts and debates her brain was sifting through.

“Whatever.” Nina opened the door and released her back into the wild, where the others waited on the pavement and Scarlet gave her a kooky smile that Yvie really really really wished she hated. Only she didn’t, Nina’s words running through her head when she decided that maybe it’d be a good night to just say “fuck it” and let everything spill out.

“Can I talk to you?” Yvie placed a gentle hand on her wrist, her voice hushed under the racket of her drunken friends.

“Oh.” Scarlet raised a brow, Yvie’s sincerity being mistaken for something very different in her head. “Right now? We’re about to go inside!”

“No, I didn’t mean-” Yvie started but found herself interrupted by the great Silky holler that she was now fluent enough to understand meant “Hurry up I need a drink down my neck or I’m gonna start on someone pronto”. Silky didn't get hangry, she got  _ thangry _ . And no one liked it when Silky felt  _ thangry _ .

“Saved by the yell.” Scarlet giggled as they followed in tow, letting her hand fall down and dance across Yvie’s skin ever so slightly. Normally she’d berate her for making such a terrible pun but Yvie was too busy thinking about that hand and that smile and the person behind it.

“Come on.” She felt a tug on her wrist as she entered, following the arm in question to see an eager Priyanka at the other end. “Time to get you absolutely smashed.”

And absolutely smashed Yvie got. If the five shots that Priyanka bought her didn’t do it, then the cocktail pitchers she wouldn’t even remember anyone buying her the next day certainly did (even if she did spill an entire half of one when Silky insisted she jump on her back and pretend to be a human wrecking ball - the bouncers loved that one). One hand in Jaida’s and the other pointed to the ceiling, Yvie could have sworn she touched the sky for a moment as she looked across at all the people who she cared about her having the night of their lives. Brooke playing fake stubborn as Vanessa pouted and begged for her to go up and request their song for the second time that night. Heidi and Priyanka waving to the crowds around them like the absolute idiots they were. Nina, clearly simping over a girl from across the room without any intention of going up to speak to her. But Yvie couldn’t judge - there she was feeling the blood rush through her body that little bit faster the moment Scarlet came back to their group after saying hello to her school friends. Yvie had fallen way too far for any of them to lend a hand. She’d dug the grave and maybe it was time to grab a pillow and a nice book so she could at least lie there in comfort.

Holding two fingers to her mouth and making eye contact, Yvie was on her way outside with Scarlet before she knew it, hand in hand as they pushed their way through the crowds. She wondered if that would ever feel normal, Scarlet’s fingers clasped around hers just like the first time.

“What’s up with you?” Scarlet asked once they found a seat, the air dark and breezy around them. If Yvie had had a jacket she’d have popped it around her back, noticing even in her drunken state that the hairs on Scarlet’s arm were standing up, a tiny chatter in her teeth with every word. “You’re being really nice tonight.”

“It is my birthday.” Yvie laughed, feeling the blush race to her cheeks. God, she was even worse than Nina.

“It’s still weird. It’s unnerving me.”

“Do you want me to be rude to you?” Yvie laughed, even more, opting to place her hands on either side of Scarlet’s arms, rubbing up and down to keep her warm after feeling her body shake.

“If you’re rude to me then you won’t get your present.”

Yvie didn’t know what to think. She’d stalked Scarlet and her friends enough on Instagram to know what birthday presents meant: Swarovski bracelets, Vivienne Westwood earrings and Tiffany necklaces. They did it all and the thought was terrifying.

“I told you not to spend any money on me.” Yvie flashed back to the day she invited Scarlet, highlighting the “no presents just presence” part of the offer. 

“I didn’t.” Scarlet leaned in and kissed her cheek, not caring who was around and watching. Yvie would feel the sticky mark from her gloss all night and even the next morning, she wished later that she’d wiped it off then and there before everything came tumbling down and how she looked was the last thing on her mind.

“I’m sure you didn’t.” Yvie rolled her eyes, thinking of how many times she’d watched Scarlet tap down her contactless debit at any opportunity. The smell of the new handbags was basically her opium. But Yvie didn’t care, Scarlet’s weekly shopping trips became a quirk of hers that Yvie found herself starting to love that touch more than she hated. If she didn’t get her place at Uni she could always just stay in that grave she’d dug, it was becoming more and more like home by the second.

“I was gonna tell you later when we’re sober and not in the middle of the smoking area but…” Scarlet grabbed her phone and started scrolling, a childlike grin on her face that was normally only reserved for her giddiest moments.

At first, Yvie didn’t take in what Scarlet was showing her, the writing a bit fuzzy beyond her beer goggles and Scarlet saying far too many words at once for her to process.

“Naomi’s cousin did it and I thought it would help you out but I know how stubborn and busy you are and didn’t want you to have anything more on your plate so I did all the application and stuff for you. There’s a reference from my Dad and one of your essays then you just had to answer some questions about where you live and stuff like that then you got the lower offer…”

She kept talking but Yvie zoned out, her eyes focusing on the words “supported progression” and “increasing diversity”. But then the words blurred even more and Yvie didn’t even realise it was because she was crying until it was too late to fight.

“Hey.” Scarlet wiped away at her cheeks, her hands even colder than before as Yvie felt her body starting to burn. “It’s alright, we’ll talk about it later.”

“You think I need handouts?” Yvie wanted so badly to look at her but couldn’t, screwing her eyes shut instead where nothing was spinning and she couldn’t see the way Scarlet’s face changed before her.

“No, no. You’ve got it wrong. I just saw how stressed you were and knew it would help you. Look Yvie, they lowered your grades. It’s a great opportunity. Let’s just carry on with our night, yeah? I shouldn’t have shown you now.”

And suddenly everything poured out of Yvie’s lips. The time a customer at work had made a complaint about her tone of voice and unnecessary anger. The time a boy in year eight had told her she was pretty for a black girl. Every single time an ignorant white girl thought they were single-handedly destroying racism by picking her for their team in rounders and using her as some sort of diversity token. She felt it all, her eyes still shut so she was speaking to all of them and not just Scarlet.

“You think this is a present? Helping the black girl from the council estate get a lower Uni offer cause she needs a step up to be like everyone else?”

“Yvie, no. That’s not why I did it. I was trying to help.” Yvie could hear her voice breaking but didn’t want to look, couldn’t let herself look. 

“I didn’t ask for your help.” She tried to fight it but Yvie didn’t let her, the thought of Scarlet filling those forms in replaying in her mind. She wondered how many boxes she’d checked, how close she was to not being poor enough or not being black enough to get rejected from the scheme. She thought about the people like Scarlet who went to private school and never had to work a day in their lives with their shiny new offers, she wondered if they’d think that was the only reason she got there, she needed a hand up to get to their level.

“I opened so much to you.” Yvie clenched her fists and somehow managed to draw blood. “It might not seem like it but I fucking did Scarlet, I thought you understood.”

“I do, I promise. It’s like those female-only MP spots we talked about, remember? You said they were cool. I’m sorry, I should have spoken to you, come back inside.”

Yvie finally opened her eyes and wished she hadn’t; because Scarlet looked like someone had murdered a puppy right before her and she wanted nothing more to do than to hold her and tell her everything would be okay. But it wasn’t. So she couldn’t. She’d known from the start that they were from different worlds and hated herself at that moment for believing any different. This wasn’t Scarlet’s fault, it was her own.

“I didn’t mean to, Yves. Please don’t hate me.” Scarlet could sense Yvie’s anger, shivering still in her spot as Yvie stood up to leave.

Yvie wanted to laugh. Two hours earlier she’d decided tonight was the night she’d tell Scarlet that she might have accidentally fallen in love with her. Yet there she was, Scarlet’s lip gloss sticky on her cheek with her shoes in her hand, ready to run as far away as she could till the world around her stopped spinning and she wasn’t hurting anymore.

“I really wished I did.”

She didn’t turn around to see Scarlet’s reaction, those five words ringing in her head all the way home and keeping her awake whilst the sky turned into pinks and reds and oranges. They stayed there for months, a thousand other things she could have said mounting in her brain over time all to be pushed aside by those words that followed her. She heard them behind the blaring music when she went to hand in her notice at work, hidden in the muffled cry that Heidi made as they hugged to the future. She saw them in the exam hall that June, written on the bricks in chalk all around before she had the chance to turn over her paper, reminding her of every single thing she’d sacrificed for that moment. They followed her into summer as the sun shone brighter and the nights got longer, there to tease her on the day her biggest dream came true when she opened her envelope and her first thought was that she wanted to tell Scarlet.

That feeling still lingered the week after results day, where most people were still celebrating, rolling into their houses at four in the morning with the childhood friends they’d soon have to take three trains to visit, savouring every last moment of those precious months where they would have absolutely zero responsibilities to their name.

Yvie wished she was one of those people, alternatively finding herself cramped on the bus in a slightly too tight white shirt, ready for her third job interview that month. She wished was chilling in Brooke’s room instead like the rest of her friends were, laughing at their Snapchat stories from the night before and deleting the ones where you could hear their singing a lot louder than they’d realised at the time (although she assumed they were still asleep and hadn’t gotten to that stage of the day yet, as evident in Vanessa’s beautiful rendition of Christina Aguilara that blasted through her headphones and just begged for Yvie to take a screen recording). She flicked through their stories a few more times before Heidi’s name had popped up, wishing her good luck on her interview in their group chat.

_ “Hope you don’t get it and have to come back here until you go to Uni xxx”  _ Priyanka added, always the loving and supportive friend of the group. 

She really missed them. Almost as much as she missed someone else.

_ “You underestimate my persuasion skills.”  _ Yvie sent back, knowing fine well that she was missing a very important trait that interviewers looked for - actually turning up.

She’d made it to the first one, pacing around the store with her CV in hand, raring to go. Things changed of course when a gaggle of girls with tartan skirts entered to rake through the shelves, the familiar blue of their uniform reminding them of why she was even there in the first place and sending her flying out the door before her name was even called. The second was an even shorter experience, having simply let the bus go past the stop without ringing the bell, an accident on purpose that took her all the way to the other side of town. Yvie had always thought she knew which side of the fight or flight analysis she stood proudly and grounded on, but if the urge to yeet herself off the bus and run home the second the restaurant came into sight wasn’t enough to prove how wrong she’d been then nothing else would.

Third time a charm?

She took one more peek at her phone before making her way through the door, quickly scanning her messages one more time and avoiding the small number one that burst out the corner of the text app. She’d open it when she was ready.

“Yvonne?” A familiar girl asked, raising a thick eyebrow her way.

“Yvie.” She pulled the best fake smile that three years of drama lessons in school had provided her with, praying it was enough to cover the utter disdain that came with hearing her full name, something usually reserved for family members and the front of exam papers. She knew people had worse, she could shorten Yvonne. It wasn’t awful, just not Yvie. And at least her mother never decided to name her after a piece of fruit. 

If she didn’t have company she’d have slapped herself against the face for even letting her thoughts slip close to Scarlet again, opting instead to pinch the skin on her hand (there was still a mark from when she’d done the same thing a few days prior, having let even the cereals at the supermarket bring back soft memories of the girl that she fought so hard to keep away from).

“My Dad’ll be out in a minute.” The girl turned on her heel to walk away and Yvie realised why she recognised her, laughing to herself at the thought of working with Nina’s utterly obvious crush from sixth form who didn’t even know she existed. She thought about Brooke and Priyanka and what a funny reverse it would be to have her school friend gushing over her work friend instead of the other way around.

Not that this girl was Priyanka, or this place was the centre. It just wasn’t and Yvie knew already. Maybe she wouldn’t tell Nina about Bob’s sister, after all doing that would only catch her in a lie when she inevitably fucked the whole thing up and didn’t dare admit it. Because admitting that she messed up the interview would only lead to admitting a bigger and scarier thought in Yvie’s head.

She really, really wanted to go back in time. If not then a little bit forward, just so the interview was over and she could return back to the comfort of her bed with the new sheets that she’d bought so she could take her old ones to Uni and not because they reminded her of ginger hair tossed out on her pillow and the infuriating yet adorable noise of Scarlet grinding her teeth in her sleep. Definitely the former.

Only she wasn’t a wizard, not even a bit close like all those kids at Scarlet’s school with their house teams and fancy lessons. So the interview started like normal, Yvie jumping over each hurdle the best she could, stumbling a tad when he asked her about why she wanted to work there and she knew “I broke the heart of my ex-bosses daughter and can no longer show my face there but need money” would not have been a sufficient answer. The next few were okay, her feet gliding over nicely as she rattled off one thing or another about her time management skills and ability to work well under pressure. However, she let her face smack the ground on the final hurdle, the finish line almost in sight.

The dreaded character reference.

Yvie watched as he dropped it from his hands and onto the desk - the first time she’d properly looked at it after asking Brooke to print it and shoving it in her file without so much as a once-over. She tried her best to look back up, to engage and catch the interviewer’s eye like she knew she was supposed to, except her own eyes were glued to a familiar font she’d seen many times before. Her mind flashed to all the time spent reading detailed flashcards on the War of the Roses with Scarlet, shooting questions across the room aggressively like they were in the battle themselves (she was the House of Lancaster, red with danger and passion and Scarlet was York, pure and white as she pulled a face of utter distress at every date she couldn’t remember). She knew that font.

“Your reference is pretty impressive.” He looked back up but Yvie was still staring anyway. “This is from your previous employer?”

“Y-yes.” Yvie spat her words, realising at that moment that the character reference that persuaded her University to give her a lower offer, the reference that was two pages long and signed sincerely from her Scarlet’s dad, was in fact written by a passionate eighteen-year-old with a heart of gold and a strange affinity for using the word “conversely”. A realisation that was only a few _ months _ too late. If she’d wanted to go back in time earlier...

“Well, I’m surprised he let you go reading this.” He pointed a finger to a specific paragraph and Yvie let her eyes move along the page, his words background noise to Scarlet’s voice speaking clearly in her head.

_ “In the time that I have employed Yvie, I have been able to see not only her incredibly high standards concerning every aspect of her life but also the passion, vulnerability and humility behind every decision she makes. Watching Yvie blossom into the resilient and determined woman she is today has brought great pleasure to my eyes, however, even more pleasure has been found in seeing the growth she has encouraged in those around her, constantly bringing a sense of warmth and comfort to her coworkers in the most subtle of ways when she isn’t even trying to.” _

In the past few months, Yvie had cried a total of three times. The first being her birthday, the night she lost the best part of her entire year in one quick visit to the smoking area. The second was results night - happy tears that had absolutely nothing to do with the text she’d pushed away to the top of her screen after reading the first few words. At least that’s what she’d told Brooke and Nina. Nothing to do with the text or the urge she had to run across to Slug and Lettuce as fast as she could and drag Scarlet away from her half-price cocktails just so they could pretend things were how they used to be for one night. She’d also have told her that she was proud of her, whispered it in her ear as they lay intertwined and said it over and over again so Scarlet  _ knew  _ she meant it. Only she didn’t, the words falling off her cheeks and onto the toilet floor instead, where Scarlet wouldn’t have been able to see them even with her glasses on. So it came as no surprise that the third time was Scarlet-related too, the reference turning more and more blurry as she tried to read on, eventually slipping through her fingers and turning into a jumble of black and white she didn’t have the strength to unscramble.

In the most simple of terms, she’d fucked it. Well and truly fucked it. At least she was one hundred per cent sure of that.

“Sorry, I-” Yvie started but couldn’t find the words to finish, pushing her chair back with such force that it dropped to the floor with a painful clang. 

Yeah, maybe it would have been better if she hadn’t turned up after all.

“Thanks for your time.” She mumbled, scooping the chair from the ground and swiping the reference from the table in an awkward and clunky motion.

It would have been so easy to blame Scarlet, to be angry about how many years she’d spent being strong and resilient, immune to vulnerability. To be annoyed at how suddenly she’d waltzed in and smashed all that to pieces with a kick of her designer flats. But if there was one thing Yvie had come to realise that year it was that she only ever made things harder for herself. And despite always saying she loved her life how it was, that was something she had to change. Pronto.

***

“I got you a double vodka.” The girl, Gigi, motioned as Scarlet took her seat, not even bothering to apologise for being late. Not that she’d have had an excuse anyway, having spent all morning laying like a dog on her bed and scrolling aimlessly down her phone until she had twenty minutes to go and figured she might as well start getting ready. Oh, how things had changed.

“Thanks.” Scarlet tried her best to conjure up a smile, her throat wavering as she took a sip and imagined it was a nice fruity cocktail instead. Before she probably would have gagged a little at the taste but she was trying to be less dramatic about things. Of course, a ridiculous idea about ‘accidentally’ spilling it then going to order a fishbowl instead crossed her mind but she managed to shoo it away. Gigi had spent good money on that drink and if Scarlet had learnt any lesson that year it was that you should never take a gift for granted.

“Were you at work today?” She asked, placing her hand on the table just close enough that Scarlet’s hand would brush it if she went for another sip. 

Scarlet couldn’t deny that she was ravishing, her eyes screamed sex and she had a beauty mark on her right cheek that just proved she was the modern-day incarnation of Marilyn Monroe. Objectively, she was very pretty and Scarlet should have been proud. 

Yet she did not move her hand.

“Nah. My sister has a dance recital this evening, had to make sure my day was all clear.”

It was stupid really, organising a date when she knew she had plans later, essentially shutting down any possibility of taking things further. Only Scarlet wasn’t stupid at all, not in the slightest.

She let the small talk go on further, from travels to Uni to work to friends to food then back to Uni again. Scarlet could see the similarities, the expensive taste they both shared and the fact that Gigi too seemed to live life with the neatness and perfection that Scarlet thrived on. If she were to colour in she’d do it perfectly within the edges, even going as far as ripping the page out if she went over the lines. They should have slotted together perfectly. Should have.

“Did I tell you that you’re gorgeous yet?” The comment took Scarlet off guard, slipped casually into the conversation in that clever witty way she’d always wished she could emulate herself. The way the male lead did in movies and the girl would always swoon and decide that was the moment she was in love with him. In the past she would have loved it, her ever-so-slightly inflated ego taking in any compliment she could get and running with it until the cows returned for their pasture. 

“Nope.” She took another sip of the drink, surprised at how little was actually gone. “But you don’t need to, I already know.”

“Sorry.” Her date held two hands in the air and stifled and awkward laugh. Scarlet couldn’t help but wonder why she didn’t fight back. Tell her to get her head out of her arse or else she’d get even more lost than the time she went to London with Plastique and caught the wrong tube twice in succession. Scarlet really, really wanted her to fight back.

“I guess you must think I am too.” She raised a thick brow in Scarlet’s direction. “Or else you wouldn’t have gotten with me on results day.”

Around sixth form, Scarlet was known for having high standards: rolling her eyes in the common room if there was no peppermint tea left because she simply couldn’t have any of the other flavours, never leaving the house without at least two accessories on and always doing the extra reading on her homework even if she was having the busiest of weeks. Her standards were well past the stratosphere and she was never afraid of being a diva about them.

That being said, results day Scarlet would have gotten with absolutely anyone on that night be they male, female, gorgeous or not. Results day Scarlet’s standards were set somewhere in the Earth’s core, about two-thousand and nine hundred kilometres below the sticky floor of the club she was in. She was desperate to feel something or someone. And Gigi was there at her service.

“I guess.” Scarlet tried her best to be polite, her mind flashing back to that night when she felt Gigi’s red lips on her neck as she tried so hard to feel something. To feel someone. To fuck someone. To fuck Yvie and the “ _ Delivered _ ” that sat below the congratulations message Scarlet had sent her that day. A giant fuck you to the girl who’d she’d grown and blossomed with, who’d left her to wilt in the sun without any water after such a stupid mistake. A stupid mistake that she now understood the weight of in pounds and ounces and any other unit of measurement you could think of. 

“You guess, damn.” Gigi took her time coming back, looking at her thighs as if there were secret cue cards hidden under the table that told her how to respond to all of Scarlet’s remarks.

Maybe Scarlet needed someone a little more rough around the edges. Someone who let the pens teeter over the lines and used whatever colours they liked despite logic saying there are no such things as bright purple palm trees.

It would have been so easy to be with someone like Gigi, someone who shared her lifestyle, complimented her and tried her hardest to keep the conversation flowing even when awkwardness took over. But that year Scarlet had tasted difficult, complicated and down-right mind-boggling all wrapped in one dish and it was so much nicer than easy.

Easy was boring.

So she did what any other kinda-shitty human would have done on a first date they weren’t enjoying and texted her best friend under the table to call and collect her as soon as possible. Unfortunately, Naomi had never fully understood the “soon” part and left Scarlet to make painful small talk for a whole thirty minutes before pulling up outside and ringing Scarlet with the most ridiculous of emergencies.

“Seriously? That’s the best you could do?” Scarlet pulled a look of utter disbelief the second the car door was shut.

“Bitch, be grateful. I didn’t have to come rescue you.”

“I am grateful.” Scarlet grabbed her friend’s phone and began to queue songs without thought. “I just thought you’d come up with something better than ‘my dog has diarrhoea’, that’s all.”

“You still left!” Naomi laughed as she revved up the engine. “What was it then? Did she have no good chat? Uglier than you remember?”

“Nah, she was prettier actually.” Scarlet played with the ring on her finger, sliding it up and down so much that her skin turned red.

“Serial killer then?” Naomi paused at some traffic lights and took the opportunity to skip the next selection in Scarlet’s line up. “Sorry, that song is way too depressing.”

“She was nice! Just not for me.” She took the ring off completely, rolling it between her thumb and finger as if the small action would detract from every single thing going on in her brain.

“Oh no.” Naomi pulled a look of horror. “I get it.”

“Get what?” Scarlet squealed as her friend took a sharp left, the opposite direction to her house. “Where are you taking me, an early grave?”

“The abandoning a date with the prettiest girl in town, the sad songs. You’re still hung up on Yvie.”

“I’m not!” Scarlet protested, trying her hardest to be nonchalant but instead sounding like a toddler who’d been accused of stealing extra biscuits at break time. Ever so subtle. “Where are we even going?”

“McDonald’s car park. So you can tell me yet again about how guilty you feel and what an awful mistake you made and how you just want everything to be how it was before because it’s  _ just not fair! _ ” Naomi mimicked Scarlet’s dramatic whine and she couldn’t help but give her credit for how spot-on she was, even if she had had a solid seven years of science lessons and after school shopping trips to practice.

“And then you can tell me that life’s not fair and I just have to accept that Yvie hates me again even though I understand everything now?”

“Exactly!” Naomi made her way into the drive-through, stalling at the first pause and making Scarlet laugh for what felt like the first time in months. “You’d think I’d be an expert at this by now, the number of times I’ve had to drag you here.”

“You would be if life was fair.” Scarlet poked her in the rib, happy to have a friend who knew that she needed cheering up before she even knew herself. 

And that’s just what she did, reminding Scarlet about Uni and all the girls who would happily bully her there so she didn’t have to pine for the one who had left her, sliding between deep and lighthearted as they ate their meals so slowly they turned cold. 

“I just miss her, Naomi.” Scarlet took the last spoonful of her McFlurry, wishing she didn’t have Lemon’s stupid recital and could have gone round again for a second one. Maybe even a third. “I know she’s a dickhead and you think she doesn’t deserve me. But we were good. Really good.”

“I know.” Naomi planted a kiss on her friend’s forehead, pulling her into the biggest of cuddles before starting the car up again and changing the subject. “So, how many shit dances are you gonna have to sit through tonight before your sister comes on for five minutes?”

“Hmmm. Maybe thirty? I’ll make sure to let you know.”

She was close, opening the program as soon as she sat down that evening to count a whole twenty-seven names before Lemon’s, sending Naomi a quick text with the rolling eyes emoji that had suddenly become her most frequently used (replacing the eyes pouring with tears one of course).

She stopped watching altogether ten dances in, letting her eyes travel around the theatre and play out little scenarios in each balcony or scenario, something about the place just screaming romance when you blocked out the fifteen-year-olds forgetting the moves to the Greatest Showman soundtrack on stage (one performance to Rewrite the Stars stood out in particular, reminding her of the time it played in work and Yvie made a joke about how it could have been them but Scarlet wasn’t suave enough to be the Zac Efron character). After twenty she took a trip to the toilet, topping up her gloss and mascara for absolutely no one to see in the dim lighting.

It was a long night, to say the least, Scarlet eager at the edge of the seat by the time dancer number twenty-seven had taken their ridiculously extra walk off the stage and she heard her bratty baby’s name announced on the speaker. Just because she had no desire to clap for other people’s family didn’t mean she wasn’t a secret stage-sister when it came to watching Lemon, wishing she could pull out her phone and record like the cool mom from  _ Mean Girls _ . 

Only it’s a good job she didn’t because, after not one but two calls of her name, there was no sight of Lemon and her big yellow feather boa that Scarlet had bought specifically for that night.

Tripping over at least four sets of feet on her way, Scarlet clambered over the stalls the best she could, dashing to the backstage area as fast as she could once the next girl’s name was called and her routine started. Crazy thoughts ran through her head, images of Lemon locked in storage closets or being carted off into an ambulance with a cast on her leg flashing up as she ran up to an assistant and asked perhaps too forcefully why her sister was not tapping away on that stage like she should have been.

“There was someone without a ticket asking after her at the front desk, I thought she had come back!”

Scarlet didn’t know if he was speaking to her or his headpiece but she was gone again, her size fives working double-time to go and figure out whether it was her absent parents or Lemon’s stupid airhead friends that have caused her to miss her dance and send the gay intern into a state of existential panic.

Glasses at aid, it didn’t take long to find her, feathers falling from the boa as Lemon shook it in her hands with her words. Maybe Scarlet should have spent a little more money on it after all...

Scarlet shouted for her down the hall, the stage-sister persona now fully developed and realised. 

But her sister ignored her, continuing to point her finger in the sassiest of manners that would probably have left her cleaning the pantry for two weeks at home - that ruled out her parents, for sure.

“What are you…” Scarlet started but lost the words once she turned the corner and finally got a sight of who her sister was berating. “Oh.”

“I went to the centre but Jaida said you had the day off to watch Lemon dance,” Yvie spoke simply and clearly.

It seemed crazy seeing her in person after spending so long trying to push her portrait out of her head and convince herself that she didn’t exist. But there she was, real as day, her eyes slightly red and her shirt haphazardly tucked into her trousers. “This is the third place I’ve tried but they wouldn’t let me in.”

For perhaps one of the first times ever in her life, Scarlet couldn’t think of anything to say.

“She had a date today too,” Lemon smirked in Yvie’s direction and Scarlet watched her face drop more than it had the day that she’d planned a walk for the two of them around the botanic gardens only for it to be closed (Scarlet went alone once just before her exams and almost let herself cry thinking about how much Yvie really knew her). 

“Lemon!” Scarlet’s mind caught up as she turned to her sister and gave her the black look of death that they had devised as kids to show when they were not playing games.

“What? She can just break your heart and then waltz into my dance show with some flowers and it’s alright.” 

Scarlet hadn’t even noticed the flowers until then - big, red daisies that Yvie was gripping onto far too tight, her nails thorns pressed into her palm. She wanted to take them just so Yvie would stop, to slip her own hand there instead like they had done so many times.

“She didn’t break my heart Lemon, oh my god.” Scarlet’s face spoke a thousand words she wasn’t saying out loud and they were all synonyms for something starting with fuck and ending with off.

“So you just listened to Lana Del Rey on repeat for weeks with the door shut for fun?”

“Excuse me.” A scary-looking woman with a security badge pinned to her lapel rose her voice over her sister’s. She was now officially Scarlet’s number one hero, Audrey Hepburn being shot down in favour of the godsend who parted the red sea to put an end to the ex-flame vs. sister crisis that Scarlet was trapped in. “This is not the place for arguments, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“She’s meant to be dancing, can she go back in?” Scarlet pulled her best puppy dog eyes and batted her eyelashes praying that the woman would let her. It was, after all, the least she could do given that she was now also ranked above Grace Kelly and Arianna Huffington in the mental list of important women who impacted her life. Quite an honour, if she thought so herself.

“If you leave.” The woman pointed to the door before escorting Scarlet and Yvie outside like two school kids who had to spend their lunchtime standing on the wall for being naughty (not that that had ever actually happened to Scarlet herself as a kid. She imagined it would have happened to Yvie and her blunt tongue though, letting a laugh out at the mental image of the girl aged ten having a huff for missing golden time).

“Ring me when you’re done!” Scarlet shouted to her sister before the doors closed on them and they were released to the night sky that had been a cloudy blue when Scarlet first arrived.

And suddenly she was left alone with Yvie. With the girl who had ignored her texts. Who she’d cried over in McDonald’s car park at least seven times by then. Who she longed for every time she even made eye contact with another girl. Who had left her alone in the smoking area with nothing but the taste of corked champagne in her mouth.

“I’m sorry,” Yvie spoke for the first time since she’d first seen her, bending down to sit on the curb. Scarlet didn’t have to think twice about joining her.

“It’s fine, I can’t say that was the most exciting thing to watch, anyway.” She motioned to the theatre behind them, the street lamp lighting up Yvie’s face just enough to see her crack a smile. Scarlet pushed the confusion and the past aside for a moment just to take in that smile.

“Not for that.” She gripped her palm again and this time Scarlet couldn’t stop herself from grabbing her hand to stop her. “For before, for everything. I don’t know who you’re seeing or anything but I just couldn’t go away at the end of this summer without telling you that I’m sorry.”

“I’m not seeing anyone.” Scarlet’s heart was beating fast and all of a sudden she was at the back of the cafe with Yvie again, the rest of the world in 2D as they spun in their own little bubble.

“I’m sorry for abandoning you, for making things harder for myself because I got scared. Scared of stupid things that I knew you never even meant. I just never even knew what I felt myself and once I did then I tried to deny it.”

“I’m sorry too.” For once Scarlet was glad she was wearing her glasses in front of Yvie or else she’d be able to see the tears welling in her eyes that very moment. “For being naive and thinking I knew what was best for you.”

And things carried on that way, Scarlet unable to hide the tears for much longer when Yvie told her that she didn’t have to say sorry, that she didn’t even have to forgive her. She just had to listen and try her best to understand. Yvie spoke about when she was a kid, about the day she realised she was different to all the other girls in her class and the day she lost the ability to tell if she hated something or loved it. She talked about the first time they met, the first time they had sex and the first time she thought fuck I’m in far too deep. About the past few months and how they had been, her words not Scarlet’s, like the “nine circles of hell on steroids''. About how she read the reference and realised those were probably the nicest things a person had ever said about her, and how awful it felt to realise she’d pushed that person away.

“It was all true, the reference.” Scarlet squeezed her hand when she finished, proud of Yvie for managing to speak so many of her thoughts and feelings into the universe and even prouder of herself for not interrupting even once.

“I really brought a sense of warmth to you?” Yvie chuckled as she regained her composure, raising a brow at Scarlet like she had so many times before. “I think I’m the coldest person I know.”

“God knows how but yes, you did.” Scarlet leant in close. “You do.”

The kiss felt like home and Scarlet tried to thank every single star in the sky she could see for it but was swiftly interrupted by the second kiss. She’d have to get up a diagram of the entire solar system to pay her gratitude for the second kiss.

“See? Warmth.” She whispered into Yvie’s ear.

“You don’t have to forgive me that fast, Scarlet. This isn’t a story, things take time.”

“Well, it’s a good job we have some left to work on that before you go to Uni then isn’t it? Now, do you wanna kiss again or carry on telling me about how painstakingly awful it was getting over me? Either is fine by me.”

“It wasn’t that bad.” Yvie teased her. “I could probably do it all over again if I had to.”

“You’d be willing to risk that?”

“For this?” Yvie pulled her into another kiss, this one stronger, making up for the months they’d missed and setting precedent for the few weeks they had left. If there was still an inkling inside of Scarlet that Yvie hated her then that kiss washed it right away with the rain that fell, all the way down the banks and into the river that night. “One hundred per cent.”


End file.
